Last night I met up with a crowd of restaurant reviewers from the local Yelp community. Yelp, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a community of on-line reviewers who contribute reviews of restaurants and other businesses. Over time, visitors to the site can get an increasingly accurate perception of how [...]
When the talk turns to weekend plans, usually ideas that involve spending come to mind. Dinner out. A movie. A night out at the clubs. A sports event. These things are fun and fine to do in moderation. However, they can get expensive if you do them every weekend or if you are on a [...]
Most people seem to have a lot of false beliefs about being debt free. They seem to think that those of us who are debt free never have to worry about money, or that we are somehow free from the concerns of everyday life. Some people work to become debt free because they believe that [...]
This week we had a snowstorm. To many areas of the country this is no big deal. However, where I live we don’t “do” snow. We don’t have bi snow removal operations, most of us natives don’t know how or care to drive in it, and everything pretty much shuts down until the melting happens. [...]
Regardless of whether you are looking to reduce spending for the purposes of debt reduction, or for saving, the first thing that must be done is to identify where you are spending money unwisely. If you are not ready to be honest about a budget breaker, a vice, or a ‘treat,’ then you are not [...]
My state, like so many others, is awfully short on money these days. There have been budget cuts and tax increases in an effort to make up the shortfall. However, some of these cuts have threatened my bottom line more than others and forced me to become politically active to save my money. Most recently, [...]
The other day, I was headed to our local dog park with my wife and our puppy. We were already in the car and actually backing out of the driveway when I realized that I had forgotten my business cards. I stopped the car and told my wife that I was headed back into the [...]
I’m a huge Star Wars nerd and many of my favorite quotes come from the Jedi Master, Yoda. My personal favorite is the following: “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not.” When I think about my debt free life, I often change [...]
We all know (or should) that living above your means for the long term is a recipe for financial disaster. Living above your means is spending more than you earn on a consistent basis. When you do it occasionally, as in the case of an emergency or a planned splurge, it’s not detrimental. However, it [...]
